Veneno para las hadas [Poison for the Fairies] (Carlos Enrique Taboada, 1986)
Sep
19
apples
Verónica (Ana Patricia Rojo) eating a red apple from a paper bag filled with fruit. The kitchen is spartan. DP: Lupe García.
Veneno para las hadas [Poison for the Fairies] (Carlos Enrique Taboada, 1986)
Sep
19
apples
Verónica (Ana Patricia Rojo) eating a red apple from a paper bag filled with fruit. The kitchen is spartan. DP: Lupe García.
Matinée (Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, 1977)
Aug
19
free candy
Best friends Aarón (Rodolfo Chávez Martínez) and Jorge (Armando Martín) helping out in Aarón's parents' convenience store while helping themselves to a snack or two. DP: Jorge Stahl Jr..
Salón México (Emilio Fernández, 1949)
Aug
13
$120 cerveza
Mercedes (Marga López) sitting at a small round table at the salón. A waiter just came over to take her order. In the other room, meticulously dressed couples dance to live music. DP: Gabriel Figueroa.
El lugar sin límites [The Place Without Limits] (Arturo Ripstein, 1978)
Aug
13
Gay Uncles Day
Pancho (Gonzalo Vega) watches La Manuela (Roberto Cobo) dance flamenco for him. DP: Miguel Garzón.
Cabaretera, a sub-genre from the Epoca de Oro (the golden epoch of Mexican filmmaking, 1930s—1950s), combines film noir with melodrama and musical numbers. Often set in cabarets (brothels), these films talk about the plight of the prostitute who – not without their pride and dignity – are forced to being the breadwinner in a poverty-stricken community.
El lugar sin límites harks back to those days. We follow the plight of La Manuela, a transvestite* who together with daughter La Japonesita works as a fichera (a dancehall performer) in the brothel run by Madame La Japonesa, La Japonesita's mother.
The return of Pancho, a hyper-macho trucker, disrupts the family regime. The trucker's attraction to the #flamenco dancing fichera is at odds with his machismo. Him being outed as a maricón (a Mexican slur for homosexual) would be the end of his world.
El lugar remains a groundbreaking film, not only in how it handles taboos like #gender roles and trans- and homosexuality, but also because it highlights how (self) destructive #machismo is in Mexican society.
Sergio de la Mora's excellently researched EL LUGAR SIN LÍMITES: Ripstein in Review delves much deeper than this little writeup here. Do read it (spoilers ahead).
*Roberto Cobo's La Manuela is transsexual. The term “transvestite” is what's used in the film and typical for its time.
“I love the spontaneity of this situation. If you'd like to spend the night, we'll make up as many rooms as needed. I'm pleased to see the old spirit of improvisation is alive and well.”El ángel exterminador [The Exterminating Angel] (Luis Buñuel, 1962)
Jun
3
National Black Bear Day
A young brown bear in a luxuriously furnished room. DP: Gabriel Figueroa.
As part of a witty surprise, Lucía Nóbile (Lucy Gallardo) arranged a #bear and three #sheep for the lavish dinner party she's thrown for her fellow #opera-loving guests. However, the joke is not appreciated and in the cause of the evening – and a ruined dinner when the staff decides to go even before serving any of the #food – the company find that they cannot leave the salon.
– Edmundo Nobile
While the beasts roam the house, the elite are faced with hunger, primal urges, and no motivation to leave.
“Come down off that column. Taste earthly pleasures till you've had your fill. Till the very word pleasure fills you with nausea.”Simón del desierto [San Simeón del desierto / Simon of the Desert] (Luis Buñuel, 1965)
May
4
National Day Of Prayer
A young, bearded person in toga and a lamb pass Simón (Claudio Brook), praying on top of his pillar. DP: Gabriel Figueroa.
Simón is a stylite in the Syrian #desert on top of a pillar, close to God, #praying. People gather and pray to him, Simón. Simón prays for the people, the animals, himself.
– The Devil
As with anyone who believes in the concept of #sin, or desires to be free of sin, sin comes to Simón.
Yanco (Servando González + Mohy Quandour, 1961)
Apr
21
Fiddlers Frolic
Juanito (Ricardo Ancona), seen in silhouette, playing his violin in the chinampas. DP: Álex Phillips Jr..
In Mayan worldview, mortals move along the horizontal, gods along the vertical plane. A boy travels both worlds, united by music and wonder.
Juanito, a #Mixquic boy with hypersensitive hearing, finds solace from the hustle of #MexicoCity in the silence of the chinampas – the pre-Hispanic man-made agricultural plots in lake #Xochimilco. There he plays his cardboard fiddle for the nature around him, until the sound from a real violin reaches him. The violinist, an old hermit who lives on one of the chinampas, takes the boy in and teaches him how to master Yanco, his hand-built instrument. When the man dies, the boy goes out at night to be able to play Yanco. In a changing world where the living and the dead used to naturally cross paths, the strings stir different to some.
The #Nahuatl film Yanco is a small cinematic miracle that begs for a beautiful restoration akin to how Govindan Aravindan's കുമ്മാട്ടി [Kummatty] (1979) opened up the world to indigenous filmmaking.